Tag Archives: National Golf Links of America

Hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth! — and it included playing golf. I was going to be a good girl and stay home for the weekend and pack for the British Opens, while all my friends fled to different vacation spots in the Tri-State area.

This is going to be sweet and short — and my apologies, I’ll update later tonight or tomorrow (more likely the latter). Turns out golf is an *extremely* grueling sport to play and cover. All that walking up-and-down hills! Or perhaps I’m an idiot who is out of shape? I was somewhat reluctant in being convinced to go to the ER to be treated for dehydration and heat exhaustion (and run some tests just to be safe, so thanks to the colleagues who looked out for me). Good news is I feel much better after they gave me oxygen and an IV of fluids, etc.

I drove out to Southampton on Tuesday to play National Golf Links of America, which has a Gatsby-esque feel to it – vintage, charming, posh (but understated) and all that jazz. Thanks to loyal reader and host Scott, it was the third time that I’ve played NGLA, my favorite course, yet only my fifth round of the year (sad, I know).

I was having one of those awesome weeks that only come along every so often. In fact, it was almost too good. I played at Bayonne on the Fourth of July and felt like my game was starting to come around. I received confirmation that my media credentials for the British Open were approved, so I was being sent to St. Andrews by a highly-respected, international, English-language newspaper. And then I was invited by Scott McConnell to play National Golf Links of America on Friday. (I mean, opportunities like that are so rare that some of my veteran golf scribe friends haven’t even played there before.)

Of all the thousands of rounds of golf I’ve played in excruciating heat, Friday wasn’t even that bad relatively — it was about 90 degrees and humid, but a nice breeze coming from the ocean. But on the day a remarkably kind Reader invites me to play THE National Golf Links of America, I come down with heat stroke, which combined with dehydration and exhaustion is just a disaster. I was mortified. Had it been almost any other course — notwithstanding Augusta National and maybe a few others — I would have called it quits after the 7th when I practically collapsed.